Electrochemical studies on charge transfer reactions across the interface between two immiscible electrolyte solutions (ITIES) have greatly attracted researcher's attentions due to their wide applicability in research fields such as ion sensing and biosensing, modeling of biomembranes, pharmacokinetics, phase-transfer catalysis, fuel generation and solar energy conversion. In particular, there have been extensive efforts made on developing sensing platforms for ionic species and biomolecules via gelifying one of the liquid phases to improve mechanical stability in addition to creating microscale interfaces to reduce ohmic loss. In this review, we will mainly discuss on the basic principles, applications and future aspects of various sensing platforms utilizing ion transfer reactions across the ITIES. The ITIES is classified into four types : (i) a conventional liquid/liquid interface, (ii) a micropipette supported liquid/liquid interface, (iii) a single microhole or an array of microholes supported liquid/ liquid interface on a thin polymer film, and (iv) a microhole array liquid/liquid interface on a silicon membrane. Research efforts on developing ion selective sensors for water pollutants as well as biomolecule sensors will be highlighted based on the use of direct and assisted ion transfer reactions across these different ITIES configurations.

Hollow-fiber membranes, is one of the new technologies that is growing rapidly in the past few decades. In addition, separation membranes using polymer materials, have attracted attentions in various fields including gas separation, fuel cells, water treatment, wastewater treatment, and organic separation. Nanofiltration (NF) membranes having the separation characteristics in the intermediate range between ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for liquid separation, with relatively low investment cost and operating pressure lower than that of RO membranes, have high permeance and rejection performance of multivalent ions as well as organic compounds of molecular weight between . In this paper, we would like to review the research trends on the various structure control and characterization of NF hollow fiber membranes with respect to materials and the methods of preparation (phase inversion method and interfacial polymerization method). Currently, most of NF membranes have been manufactured by plate and frame types or spiral wound types. But hollow fiber types have delayed in commercial products, because of the weak strength when to produce on the basis of the existing materials, therefore the development of new materials or improvement of existing materials will be needed. If improving manufacturing technology is available, hollow fiber types will replace spiral wound types and gradually show a higher market share.

This study is about photosensitive microspheres prepared by coating alginate microspheres with gelatin-cinnamic acid conjugate. Firstly, alginate microspheres was prepared in water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion and then they were coated with gelatin- cinnamic acid conjugate. Herein, gelatin-cinnamic acid conjugate is obtained by the amidation between an amine group of gelatin and a carboxy group of cinnamic acid. Cinnamic acid is widely used as a photo-responsive material easy to dimerize and dedimeriz under UV irradiation at = 254 nm and = 365 nm, respectively. As shown in SEM-EDS, alginate was successfully coated with gelatin-ciannmic acid. By determining the absorbance of coated microspheres at 270nm, the amount of cinnamic acid per microspheres was 0.13/1. The SEM photos showed the size of coated microspheres is around . And the degrees of dimerization and dedimerization were calculated to be 49% and 23% respectively. Then the release of FITC-dextran from the coated micrspheres was studied and release the degree was 42%. As a result, the coated microspheres have potential to be used as a photo-responsive drug carrier to delivery drugs.

In this work, the effects of electrochemical oxidation of carbon fiber surfaces on mechanical interfacial properties of carbon fibers-reinforced polarized-polypropylene matrix composites were studied with various current densities during the treatments. Surface properties of the fibers before and after treatments were observed by SEM, AFM, XPS, and contact angle measurements. Mechanical interfacial properties of the composites were measured in terms of critical stress intensity factor (). From the results it was found that peaks of the fiber surfaces were strengthened after electrochemical oxidation which led to the enhancement of surface free energy of the fiber, resulting in good mechanical performance of the composites. It can be concluded that electrochemical oxidation of the carbon fiber surfaces can control the interfacial adhesion between the carbon fibers and polarized-polypropylene in this composites system.

In this study, the cellular protective effect of resveratrol on oxidative damage and its antioxidative activity were investigated. The free radical-scavenging activity () of resveratrol was measured to be . The reactive oxygen species-scavenging activity () of resveratrol on the ROS generated in a system was investigated using the luminol-dependent chemiluminescence assay. Resveratrol displayed ROS scavenging activity, which is 9.6-fold higher than that of L-ascorbic acid () and had a more prominent cellular protective effect than (+)--tocopherol. When HaCaT cells were exposed to of UVB or treated with rose bengal, resveratrol protected the cells against oxidative stress in a concentration-dependent manner; however, it was unable to protect the cells when the damage was induced by 10 mM . These results indicate that resveratrol could be employed to improve and prevent the skin aging through its antioxidative and cellular protective activities.

The most common carbonaceous anode materials of lithium ion batteries (natural graphite, artificial graphite, hard carbon, and mesocarbon microbeads) were utilized as an electrode in lithium ion capacitors. It could be able to enhance the energy density of capacitors due to the intercalation of lithium ion. In this work, the properties of capacitors using the symmetric electrode were measured by organizing coin cell typed capacitors. Also, we made other capacitors having pre-intercalated lithium ions at one side of the electrode. The results of electrochemical measurements for these capacitors show that the storage capacitance was appeared. In other words, if the migration of lithium ions is supplied continuously in the electrolytes, lithium ions can be diffused into the carbonaceous materials. And it results in the improvement of capacitance compared to only using symmetric carbonaceous electrodes. Also, we conducted the same measurement with graphene oxide having a the large specific area in the same condition. Herein, we recognized that the large specific area is extremely important for supercapacitors.

In this study, selective catalytic oxidation (SCO) of using catalyst was examined to control the slipped NH3 from various pollutants. It was found that the catalytic activity increased with increasing the Ce loadings till reaching 10 wt% Ce loading. However, when Ce loaded over 10 wt%, the activity of catalysts rather decreased than that of catalysts, below 10 wt% Ce. Therefore, the composition of catalyst optimized in this study can be applied to industrial fields.

As the usuage of tempered glass for touch panel increased rapidly with the development of industry, the amount of UV curable coating solution used to protect glass surfaces during a tempered glass manufacturing process increased as well. The UV curable coating has advantages compared to thermal curing such as shortened curing time and non-solvent. Appropriated polymer and monomer were used as an acid polymer to grant an alkali peeling ability. The monomers were 2-hydroxyl methylacrylate, 1,6-hexanediol diacrylate and dipentaerythritol hexaacrylate which have acryl groups of 1, 2, and 6, respectively. The combination of three different types of photoinhibitors were used and bisphenol A epoxy diacrylate was used as an oligomer. In this study, experiments were carried out by controlling the amount of photoinitiator, oligomer, and additive while maintaining the constant content of the acid polymer and the acrylic monomer. The changes in physical properties according to the additive content were investigated. It was found that the combination of photoinitiators was necessary to achieve the hardness above 4H and it was possible to control the delamination type of the coating film from a sheet to pieces by the addition of TPO as an initiator. The increase in oligomer contents increased the hardness and adhesiveness alongside dissection time. Talc content of 20 wt% showed the best results.

Perovskite-type oxides were successfully prepared using microwave-assisted process, and by XRD, XPS, BET, and . Their catalytic activities for the combustion of benzene were also examined. Most of catalysts studied showed the perovskite crystalline phase with the particle size of 21~35 nm. The catalyst showed the highest activity and the conversion reached almost 100% at . The catalysts prepared by microwave-assisted process showed higher activity compared to those prepared sol-gel method. In addition, the catalytic activity was increased with an increase of calcination temperature of -type catalyst. The TPR results on the measurement of redox property showed a good correlation with the order of catalytic activity on the benzene combustion reaction.

We investigated the properties of impregnated activated carbons, a commercial adsorbent for the individual protection equipment, and examined CO adsorption and oxidation to . The surface area, pore volume and pore size were measured for four commercial samples using Brunauer-Emmett-Teller/Barrett-Joyner-Halenda (BET/BJH), and atomic compositions of the sample surface were analyzed based on SEM/EDS and XPS. Impregnated activated carbons containing Mn and Cu for fire showed the catalytic CO oxidation to with a high catalytic activity (up to 99% yield), followed by the CO adsorption at an initial reaction time. On the other hand, C: for chemical biologial and radiological (CBR) samples, not including Mn, showed a lower CO conversion to (up to 60% yield) compared to that of fire samples. It was also found that a heat-treated activated carbon has a higher removal capacity both for CO and at room temperature than that of untreated carbon, which was probably due to the impurity removal in pores resulted in a detection-delay about 30 min.

This study investigated the degradation of taste-and-odor compounds and toxins using dielectric barrier discharge plasma. The degradation of taste-and-odor compounds was conducted on geosmin and 2-methyl isoborneol (2-MIB), and the toxins investigated were microcystin-LR (MC-LR), microcystin-RR (MC-RR), microcystin-YR (MC-YR) and anatoxin-a. Largely depending on the type of gas fed to the plasma reactor, the degradation efficiencies of the taste-and-odor compounds decreased in order of oxygen (100%) > dry air (96%) > nitrogen (5%) for geosmin and in order of oxygen (100%) > dry air (94%) > nitrogen (2%) for 2-MIB on the basis of 150 s reaction time. This result suggests that the oxidative reactive species generated during plasma treatment, especially long-lived ozone, are mainly responsible for the degradation of these compounds. When using oxygen as the feed gas, geosmin and 2-MIB were totally degraded within 150 s, microcystins within 10 s, and anatoxin-a within 30 s. It was found that the taste-and-odor compounds and toxins were degraded more rapidly in real lake water than in distilled water.

Contents of the total polyphenols and flavonoids in the dietary fiber from tubers and stalks of domestic sweet potatoes were investigated. In addition, their antioxidant activity as well as the potent anti-cancer effects through the growth inhibition in human colon cancer cells (HT-29) in vitro were tested. The total flavonoids as naringin equivalents in dietary fiber from tubers and stalks of sweet potatoes were naringin/g extract and mg naringin/g extract dry basis, respectively. The amounts of the total polyphenols as gallic acid equivalents were mg gallic acid/g dry basis and mg gallic acid/g dry basis, respectively. 1,2-Diphenyi-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical-scavenging activity of the dietary fiber from stalks was 2.4 times higher than that of the dietary fiber from tubers. Interestingly, a strong growth inhibition on HT-29 cells was observed in both dietary fibers originated from stalks and tubers of sweet potato in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, we found that the dietary fiber from tubers and stalks of sweet potato increased the gene expression of tumor suppressor p53. The great potential value in the prevention of various diseases including cancer the potential value could be confirmed through effects of the dietary fiber from tubers and stalks of sweet potato on antioxidant activity and anticancer in human colon cancer.

Vegetable oil-based dimer acid derivatives were prepared through a two-step procedure and their lubricating properties for diesel fuel were evaluated using high frequency reciprocating ring (HFRR) method to investigate wear scar diameter (WSD). Diels-Alder reaction at an elevated temperature transformed fatty acid to dimer acid, subsequently converted into dimer acid derivatives by esterification with methanol. It should be noted that the derivatives were dissolved well in diesel oil up to 1 wt%. After adding 120 ppm of the derivatives to pure diesel, the WSD significantly decreased to , compared to of WSD in pure diesel. Dimer acid derivatives having carboxylic acid show superb in lubricating property which does not depend on the alkyl group in the derivatives.

In this study, the push-pull structure polymer for organic photo voHaics (OPVs) was synthesized and characterized. The poly{4,8-didodecyloxybenzo[1,2-b;3,4-b]dithiophene-alt-5,6-bis(octyloxy)-4,7-di(thiophen-2-yl)benzo[c][1,2,5]-thiadiazole} (PDBDT-TBTD) was synthesized by Stille coupling reaction using the benzothiadiazole (BTD) derivative as an electron acceptor and benzodithiophene (BDT) derivative as an electron donor. The structure of monomers and polymers was identified by and GC-MS. The optical, physical and electrochemical properties of the conjugated polymer were identified by GPC, TGA, UV-Vis and cyclic voltammetry. The number average molecular weight () and initial decomposition temperature (5% weight loss temperature, ) of PDBDT-TBTD were 6200 and , respectively. The absorption maxima on the film was about 599 nm and the optical band gap was about 1.70 eV. The structure of device was ITO/PEDOT : PSS/PDBDT-TBTD : . PDBDT-TBTD and were blended with the weight ratio of 1:2 which were then used as an optical active layer. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of fabricated device was measured by solar simulator and the best PCE was 2.1%.

This work investigated the environmental application of an underwater dielectric barrier discharge plasma reactor consisting of a porous hydrophobic ceramic tube to the decolorization of an azo dyeing wastewater. The reactive species generated by the plasma are mostly short-lived, which also need to be transferred to the wastewater right after the formation. Moreover, the gas-liquid interfacial area should be as large as possible to increase the decolorization rate. The arrangement of the present wastewater treatment system capable of immediately dispersing the plasmatic gas as tiny bubbles makes it possible to effectively decolorize the dyeing wastewater alongside consuming less amount of electrical energy. The effect of discharge power, gas flow rate, dissolved anion and initial dye concentration on the decolorization was examined with dry air for the creation of plasma and amaranth as an azo dye. At a gas flow rate of , the good contact between the plasmatic gas and the wastewater was achieved, resulting in rapid decolorization. For an initial dye concentration of (volume : 0.8 L; discharge power : 3.37 W), it took about 25 min to attain a decolorization efficiency of above 99%. Besides, the decolorization rate increased with decreasing the initial dye concentration or increasing the discharge power. The presence of chlorine anion appeared to slightly enhance the decolorization rate, whereas the effect of dissolved nitrate anion was negligible.

In the present study, pristine carbon nanotube (p-CNT) and thiolated carbon naotube (t-CNT) electrodes were investigated to improve their detectabilities for cadmium (Cd) and lead (Pb). In addition, we evaluate which reaction mechanism is used when the electrolyte contains both Cd and Pb metals. Square wave stripping was employed for analyzing the sensitivity for the metals. A frequency of 30 Hz, a deposition potential of -1.2 V vs. Ag/AgCl and a deposition time of 300 s were used as optimal SWSV parameters. t-CNT electrodes show the better sensitivity for both Cd and Pb metals than that of p-CNT electrodes. In case of Cd, sensitivities of p-CNT and t-CNT electrodes were and , respectively, while the sensitivities for Pb were (p-CNT) and (t-CNT), respectively. The better sensitivity of p-CNT electrodes is due to the enhancement in the reaction rate of metal ions that are facilitated by thiol groups attached on the surface of CNT. When sensitivity was measured for the detection of Cd and Pb metals present simultaneously in the electrolyte, Pb indicates better sensitivity than Cd irrespective of electrode types. It is ascribed to the low standard electrode potential of Pb, which then promotes the possibility of oxidation reaction of the Pb metal ions. In turn, the Pb metal ions are deposited on the electrode surface faster than that of Cd metal ions and cover the electrode surface during deposition step, and thus Pb metals that cover the large portion of the surface are more easily stripped than that of Cd metals during stripping step.

In the present work, we constructed a recombinant Escherichia coli with cytoplasmic-expressed phosphate-binding protein (PBP) and investigated its phosphate removal in water phase. When the recombinant bacteria were cultured for 6 h to treat phosphate, the removal efficiencies were 90, 49, and 41% for the treatment of 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mg/L phosphate, respectively, indicating good specific phosphate removal of our developed system. Also, cell densities of 2.5 and 5.0 Optical density resulted in high phosphate removal efficiencies and ~80% of 2.0 mg/L phosphate was efficiently removed. A novel biotechnology developed in this study could be effectively employed for resolving eutrophication problem in water body.

The high purity Al foil, which has an enlarged surface area by electrochemical etching process, has been used as an anode for an aluminum electrolytic capacitor. Etch pits are randomly distributed on the surface because of the existence of surface irregularities such as impurity and random nucleation of pits. Even though a large surface area was formed on the tunnel-etched Al, its applications to various fields were limited due to non-uniform tunnel morphologies. In this work, the selective electrochemical etching of aluminum was carried out by using a patterned mask fabricated by photolithographic method. The formation of etch pits with uniform distribution has been demonstrated by the optimization of experimental conditions such as current density and etching solution temperature.